November 8th's The Chew - Country yes, Western…not so much

Found myself slightly offended when The Chew cast was dressed in Western style cowboy clothes but talking in faux accents that sounded more like Gomer Pyle, “Aint” Bea, and other rural Southern media archetypes.  One only need hear a person say a word like athlete to know the difference. Out here in the west, it sounds like a 3 syllable word  beginning with a short A (ath-uh-lete) whereas in the deep South, it sounds like the 2 syllable word it is but takes longer to say and begins with a long A (Ayyyeeeth – leeyt).

Then I really found myself baffled when Carla Hall started making cheese grits in a skillet on a set that was decidedly Western with its brand marks, saloon doors, etc.  I’ve lived in the West my entire life and had never even seen let alone tasted grits until I visited the South.  Media synergy is behind many a stretch when it comes to tying in the latest project they’re trying to pimp with the program du jour, so the disconnect between The Chew’s dressing like cowboys but cooking and talking like Paula Deen finally cleared up when it became obvious that today’s show was just a tease for the upcoming CMA awards on ABC.  They were going country-western, not just country, and the western part of country-western showed up when Tim Love made his ribs with a new take on how to eat beets.

Mario’s wings and Alabama BBQ sauce was a disconnect for me as well. I think of wings as a Buffalo NY thing that spread throughout the US. I’ve been to Alabama and the wings were fried there like they are in Buffalo, not grilled, and served w/ blue cheese or Ranch dressing.  The white BBQ sauce was served with just about everything else you can think of, chicken, ribs, bread, even French fries, but not chicken wings.  It’s a staple in northern Alabama, served with just about every grilled or BBQed dish in that part of the state. Go a couple of hours south, like to Montgomery & it’s hit or miss. Drive an hour or so across the state line into Tennessee, Georgia or Mississippi, & it’ll be hard to find someone who’s even heard of it, let alone serves it, and good luck finding it in as far south as Mobile unless you go to a chain restaurant like Big Bob Gibson’s which started in Decatur, AL but is now found across the South. I’ve eaten at the one in Monroe, NC which would’ve been fine if I were in the mood for ‘Bama style BBQ. Unfortunately, my mouth was watering for NC style BBQ with that spicy vinegar sauce – which is not on their menu, even in NC.

There are about as many recipes for White BBQ sauce as there are families in northern Alabama. Some use sugar like Mario did, others, like Big Bob Gibson, don’t. Some use lemon juice, others don’t. Some use cayenne, others don’t. Some use granulated garlic and/or powdered mustard, others don’t. The only ingredients that every one of the recipes has in common are mayonnaise, prepared horseradish, salt, pepper & vinegar … and even that is up for debate. Some use white vinegar like Mario, others like Big Bob Gibson, use apple cider vinegar. 

I make a lower calorie version using no sugar, heavier on the horseradish & vinegar while lighter on the mayo – both in amount and type.  Mario’s called for 2 cups of mayonnaise, which is more mayo than most Alabamans use in their recipes. Their versions tend to be more like a sauce and less like the dip Mario made.

My Light & White ‘Bama BBQ Sauce

• ½  cup Best Foods (Hellman’s in the East) Light Mayo with Olive Oil  
• ¼ c white or cider vinegar depending on what I have
• 2 TBSP prepared horseradish
• fresh ground black pepper, cayenne pepper to taste

Wisk them all together and serve with grilled or BBQed meat or poultry. It is great on one of those grocery store rotisserie chickens. For a quick dinner, serve on sandwich rolls with the sauce drizzled on the chicken with more on the side for dipping.  We use it a lot at home on hot sandwiches made with leftover roast, but our favorite is as an accompaniment to Beer Can Chicken, where an opened, full beer can is stuffed into the cavity of a whole bird, then set upright onto a grill over a drip pan and cooked using indirect heat. 

Fire on The Chew, Swapping Spit & American Ghoul-ash (aka American Chop Suey) Ozzified

If we learned anything on today’s The Chew, it was that cooking isn’t for the faint of heart. First Mario Batali pays an audience member $100.00 to take a bite of blood sausage.  She didn’t seem to have any qualms about using the fork Mario used rather than her own fork so I’m guessing she has less problem with sharing saliva which has been shown to cause illness than she does with trying a food people have eaten for years without getting ill.

Then there was the flash fire when Michael Symon was showing Daphne Oz how to make his American Ghoul-ash. I’m still not convinced it was an accident. It looked more like an alcohol fire than a grease fire, and it sure went out a lot faster than any grease fire I’ve ever seen. It flared up as he tilted the plate containing the ground beef – BEFORE the meat even hit the pan. In watching it a second time, it appeared to be more sleight of hand than actual kitchen emergency. My guess is there was some sort of liquor like vodka on the plate that fell into the pan when he tipped it to spark a fire he could then demonstrate how to put out. Note also that Daphne had her hair braided rather than loose like it normally is.

All the shenanigans aside, Michael Symon made a super dish to feed the kids before they go Trick or Treating. He was correct when he said that his American Ghoul-ash was “…a great meal – it’s going to give your kids energy.   It’s got good carbs, & good protein.” 

I Ozzified it today with better carbs and better protein:

• Replaced high fat ground beef with 96% lean ground beef and added more olive oil to replace the LDL cholesterol fat missing from the beef with heart-healthy fat high in HDL cholesterol 
• Replaced Michael’s white enriched macaroni with whole wheat elbow macaroni raising the fiber count per serving up to 5 grams instead of 2
• Replaced Michael’s pricey, high sodium canned San Marzano tomatoes with no salt added organic tomatoes saving 90 mg sodium per quarter cup 
• Added fresh sliced mushrooms for additional fiber and protein

American Goulash, as it’s called in the Midwest where Michael was raised, has many variations around the country. In New England, it’s a staple on lunchroom menus and called American Chop Suey. Some families make it with tomato soup rather than tomato sauce, a common substitution back in the 1950s when the soup companies began touting their product as an easier and healthier way to prepare family favorites. 

I’m a California girl and our version was called “Chili Mac.” Mom browned the ground beef and onion, then added a can of Campbell’s Chili Soup, a can of Tomato Soup, a can of kidney beans, a dash or two of chili powder, and some water along with the cooked and drained macaroni. She then covered the whole thing with slices of American cheese.  It was the dinner served the night I graduated from high school, probably because she could feed the army that was our family with a minimum of prep time or clean-up since she made it in one HUGE electric skillet that was 8” deep and at least a foot wide.  It would take some tweaking for sure to replicate this dish since Campbell’s discontinued the very soup they invented this recipe for.

Sweet Treats Ozzified: Dark Chocolate Frozen Banana

I absolutely LOVE Goo Goo Clusters and would have made Carla Hall's Chew Chew Clusters in a heartbeat if I'd had access to Marshmallow Fluff. We have both national brand and store brand marshmallow crèmes, but Marshmallow Fluff is nowhere to be found. If I wasn't such a Goo Goo Cluster fiend, any old marshmallow filling might do, but since no other brand I've tried comes even close in quality to Marshmallow Fluff, I reluctantly decided to postpone making Carla's Chew Chew Clusters until I can replenish my stash.



The Chew made a lot of sweet treats today, and as funny as Rachael Ray's "Girl Math" is where a whole grain ingredient like multigrain pancake mix justifies using an artery-clogging one like bacon, out here in the real world making more sweets to sit on the counter singing their Siren song to me along with the packaged treats we already have on hand for next week's Trick or Treaters makes no sense. Instead, I made an Ozzified version of a chocolate shell topping similar to Magic Shell, the commercially available liquid topping that becomes a hard shell when put on cold things like ice cream.



While I agreed wholeheartedly with Mario Batali today when he said he could never get tired of plain vanilla gelato, I felt his kicked up version with crumbled Amaretti cookies and whipped cream could use a little chocolate. A quick drizzle of this topping on the gelato would be perfect. When used on sherbet, it tastes like a bittersweet orange truffle.

The process is simple: 

• Melt a high cacao content dark chocolate (60-75% cacao) either over a double boiler or in a microwave oven
• Stir in some virgin coconut oil in a ratio of 1 tsp coconut oil to 1 ounce chocolate. 
• Keep at room temperature until ready to use 

4 ounces chocolate mixed with 1 TBSP coconut oil makes for a richer, more intense chocolate flavor & is enough to cover two smaller bananas or top three scoops of ice cream Store any leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.


This topping also makes a great chocolate covered frozen banana. The video shows this being made with a banana that was frozen while still in the skin, but these directions are much easier: 

• Slice a banana in half 
• Insert a stick into the middle of the cut end 
• Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze 
• Once the bananas are frozen, coat with the chocolate/coconut oil mixture 
• If you want nuts (it's yummy this way) roll the chocolate covered banana in some chopped walnuts before the topping hardens 
• Return to the freezer until ready to eat

Feeding America … & My Family

I’ve become increasingly frustrated that the recipes aren’t online earlier than one hour before the show because my grocery store is a good five miles from my house. Even the über-proprietary Martha Stewart puts her recipes up on the same day, HOURS before it airs. I have to admit that since The Chew came on the air, I no longer feel the need to watch her hour-long infomercial for all things MSLO. All I want are some recipes, some healthy living tips and some lifestyle tips on a show where the commercials come BETWEEN segments and aren’t the impetus behind the segments themselves.

Today the short notice wasn’t the problem - it was the number of choices. Usually, I’m able to quickly narrow it down to one or two dishes to make based on what I have on hand and how likely I am able to get anything not in my pantry. Today, the only thing I knew I didn’t want to make was Carla Hall’s pot roast because I still had tri-tip from Saturday’s cookout in my fridge and didn’t want to add even more beef to my rapidly expanding inventory of leftovers.

After reading the recipes, I realized that while I had some ingredients for each of the dishes, I didn’t have 100% of ingredients for ANY of the dishes. I decided to watch the show first in the hopes that it would make my choice easier – which it in fact did, but not in the way I expected.

In the back of my mind throughout today’s episode was how unlikely it would be for someone needing a food bank to have all the ingredients for any one of today’s dishes on hand if a foodie like me didn’t. Then it hit me between the eyeballs that the point of today’s show wasn’t that everyone would have every ingredient on hand, but that with a little imagination, anyone could put together a nutritious, filling dish with whatever they did have on hand, even if it comes from the food bank. Voilà!  I had my idea – I would make Carla’s Penne Ragu using ingredients from most of the other dishes to make up for the fact that I didn’t have leftover veggies from pot roast, then donate the money I would’ve spent on those dishes to Feeding America.

Here’s what I came up with:

• Olive oil – just enough to coat the bottom of a deep frying pan 
• 1 small sweet potato, peeled and grated 
• ¼ of a red onion, roughly chopped 
• ½ carton sliced baby portabella mushrooms 
• ¼ bulb of fennel, roughly chunked 
• Leftover protein (I used tri-tip beef) 
• 1 tsp turmeric 
• one pizza delivery envelope of crushed red pepper (use fresh-ground black pepper if you don’t like spicy) 
• cinnamon to taste 
• 4 oz 11 minute Penne 
• 4 cups boiling water 
• whole wheat Panko crumbs

1. Put on the pasta water in a pan 
2. preheat a deep frying pan over medium-high heat  with just enough olive oil to thinly coat the bottom. 
3. Put the pasta in the water. Add the grated sweet potato then the onion into the fry pan and stir. 
4. When the sweet potatoes begin to stick and the onions start to soften, add the fennel and stir again. 
5. Add the mushrooms and stir again. If it is too dry, add a cup of the pasta water. Stir. 
6. By the time the mushrooms start to soften, the pasta should be about a minute or two away from being done. Dump the pasta, water & all, into the fry pan. 
7. Add the meat Continue to stir until a nice gravy is rendered. It will thicken up as it cools so be careful to not overcook. 
8. Let sit while you toast up some breadcrumbs. I used what I had on hand - whole wheat Panko. 
9. Spoon the penne mixture into bowls and top with the freshly toasted crumbs.

I used tumeric from Mario Batali’s chicken dish, sweet potatoes from Daphne Oz’s pancakes, red onions from Michael Symon’s tacos, crushed red pepper and penne from two of Carla Hall’s dishes which means I will be donating the $25 I saved NOT making the entire dish to Feeding America – if I can find the link on The Chew website…which as of yet I have not been able to do.

Drunken Purple Cow, a Recipe Redo from The Chew, October 10, 2011

The redo today is not much of an Ozzification since grape juice also has resveratrol, but using the leftover syrup I Ozzified from Mario Batali’s September 29^th’s segment (Peaches in Primativo) is easier than reducing grapes and soooo much more fun! 

The syrup was Ozzified by using agave syrup in place of the sugar. It also was made using a more easily found red wine (Malbec) & since both the online recipe & Mario’s demonstration omitted the clove, the leftover syrup doesn’t have it either. While the clove would’ve enhanced the syrup on the peaches had the recipe appeared then as it does now on the website, it would’ve made for a nasty Purple Cow.  Happy accident for me - I was able to use the syrup in a totally different way today to make a grown-up Purple Cow.

Of course, I went a couple of steps further and Ozzified the remaining ingredients from Clinton Kelly’s Purple Cow as well.  I used sherbet instead of ice cream & ice-cold, sparkling Pellegrino instead of seltzer water. Sherbet has less fat and calories than ice cream and Pellegrino is rich with minerals like calcium not found in seltzer water.

The steps are the same as they were on today’s The Chew:

• Put a generous amount of the leftover Red Wine syrup at the bottom of a tall glass – about one ounce.
• Put in a scoop of sherbet.  If you decide to use sherbet instead of ice cream, be sure it is sherbet & not sorbet. Sorbet doesn’t have milk and will not foam up the way ice cream and sherbet will.
• Pour in the sparkling mineral water. To mix it all together without it effervescing all over the place, take an iced tea or other long handled spoon & rapidly move it up and down while pouring in the water, much the way Clinton did on his segment.

The result is a very foamy, very sweet, bubbly mauve drink. Drink immediately or the whole thing collapses when the foam deflates. The Purple Cow grows up - Salud!

Solving the Mystery of The Chew's Mario Batali's Chicken with Tapenade & Fennel Salad

Went to the grocery store @ 9 a.m., which is when The Chew uploads the recipes for the day. I was so cocky, had my smartphone to get the ingredients so I'd be ready to cook along with Mario @ noon & was pleasantly surprised that I had no trouble finding the ingredients all in one store. 


Yay me, I thought smugly as I drove home. I'll have a great dinner done before the sun goes down. I watched The Chew, put the anchovies in milk like Mario said to do, & then went on about my day. 


About 30 minutes ago, I booted up the computer to fix this wonderful dinner - got the tapenade done, the fennel salad mixed & dressed...then came to a screeching halt at step 3. Someone seriously needs to proofread this website before they post. I normally post a link to the original recipe, but it's such a disaster that it's better if I don't. It's as if the Wicked Witch of the West is messing with The Chew for messing with Daphne Oz.


Step 3 listed five ingredients - but the instructions for what to do with those ingredients was to preheat the grill - no mention of what to do with the five ingredients. 


Hoping I'd figure it out, I went on to Step 4 - one ingredient, the chicken thighs - & the instructions for what to do with the chicken thighs was to mix up the ingredients from Step 3. No problem, I figured the techie entering the info just reversed the steps in a cut & paste mishap. I can handle this ... I swapped the instructions & went on to Step 5.


That's when it all came unglued again. Step 5 had five ingredients, very similar ingredients to Step 3, but in smaller amounts. What to do with those five ingredients???? "Debone your chicken.  Add chickens and toss to coat." WTF??? 


Debone my chicken & add my chickens & toss to coat in what??? The deboned chicken???? The ingredients two steps ago??? The ingredients in this step???  


I gave up & took out a couple of fish fillets instead. After pan searing the fillets, I served them on the fennel salad with a schmear of the tapenade atop the fish. The chicken went back into the fridge - hopefully there's a chicken recipe on tomorrow's The Chew. 


If not, after dinner, I finally did figure out where the breakdown was in Step 5.  The solution is below with the steps I had completed shown in double time:

• "Debone your chicken" belongs up in Step 4 along with where "Preheat the grill" should be.
• "Add chickens and toss to coat" should stay put ... it's tossed in the ingredients from Step 5.

btw: the fish was delicious!  

Ozzifying Michael Symon’s Lola Bacon Cheese Burger - a Recipe Re-do from The Chew on Oct 3, 2011

Ah, Michael, Michael, Michael, if your recipes continue to be the stuff of a cardiac surgeon like Dr. Mehmet Oz's nightmares, I fear this blog is going to appear as if I am picking on you nearly as much as you all pick on his daughter, Daphne Oz. 

Of the ten ingredients in your Lola Burger, I kept as is exactly TWO!  There are so many modifications needed to make this burger heart healthy that it could be called the the Hola burger - as in HELLO!!!! Your cardiologist is on line one! My Ozzified recipe Re-do is very tasty & doesn’t come with a side of bypass.

• You say 20-25% of saturated fat in your burger makes it delicious - current nutritional standards say saturated fat makes it a ticking time bomb. Add the rest of the fat found in your burger, such as the cheddar cheese, basting the egg in fat, etc. and nearly half of what you're stuffing in your face is artery-clogging saturated lard. 
• Fat is NOT your friend when it comes to hamburgers, unless you're Dr. Oz's friend Dr. Michael Roizen ... your Lola burgers are job security for him @ the Cleveland Clinic.

Carla Hall suggested those wanting less fat should make a smaller burger...Hola! That burger (recipe here) would make a slider look big in comparison to my Ozzified version:


Kept:

• Cracked black pepper
• Dill pickle slice

   Changed: 

• Replaced the high fat burger mix of 1/3 ground short ribs, 1/3 ground brisket & 1/3 ground sirloin with 100% ground bison meat, which is very lean - only 10% fat content
• 86ed the kosher salt and replaced it with low sodium bacon salt to compensate for the loss of the bacon flavor
• Nixed the pickled onions and put caramelized red onions in their place

Modified:

•  Swapped sliced Cheddar for 2% shredded cheddar.   Shreds mean you can use less.
• Replaced the refined white flour English muffins with a whole grain bun. They do make some whole grain English muffins but I've yet to find one out here that wasn't the head fakes Dr. Oz warns us about.
• Egg - I used an egg from chickens fed a diet rich in Omega 3 fatty acids & used a tiny amount of olive oil in a non-stick pan rather than baste it in grease the way Mario Batali did this afternoon. 
• Used no-salt catsup instead of regular catsup to reduce the sodium content of the Spicy catsup. Sracha has 100 mg of sodium per tsp which is more than enough for the sauce on this burger

   86ed altogether:

•   Bacon - make no mistake, I love bacon, but there is no need for yet a fourth protein in this delicious burger. The choice to dump this particular protein is based on the link between processed meats & some cancers. Once in a while won't kill anyone, so when I eat bacon, I want it to stand alone so I can savor the flavor. With all the other flavors here, the taste of the bacon will blend in - the low sodium bacon salt will fill the bill nicely without adding more calories and saturated fat in the process.

   

   This burger drips down your arm seductively - just like the original Lola Burger, but this food porn won't end up in cardiac arrest. Enjoy this recipe re-do with a side of sweet potato chips for a heart-healthy meal.

Ozzifying Mario Batali’s Peaches in Primitivo Syrup - A Recipe Re-do from The Chew, September 29, 2011

This recipe was pretty simple, requiring only four ingredients, well @ first anyway. You can see Mario Batali's original, pre-Ozzified recipe here:

At first glance, there wasn't much to modify in this recipe. Peaches and red wine are both already very healthful ingredients. I did end up changing everything, however.

Modified:

• Red Wine - Mario used Primitivo, an Italian wine not easily found out here in the hinterland, so I used an inexpensive Malbec in it's place
• Peaches – Not really a change on my part - the recipe said to peel them, but the picture showed the peels on. I followed the recipe & peeled them, though it would’ve been fine to use them unpeeled since the peaches I had on hand were organic. 

Swapped:

• 86ed the white sugar & used agave syrup instead. I was able to use less of it since it was already reduced.
• Didn’t use a clove because neither Mario’s on-air segment nor the recipe when it first was posted on The Chew website made any mention of it. Now all of a sudden it mentions you might want one – I concur. The syrup’s flavor profile would’ve been enhanced had a clove been simmered in the reduction.

Kept:

Fresh ground black pepper

This was already a delicious and healthier alternative to a processed, high fat, high fructose dessert. Ozzifying it by substituting agave sweetener for white sugar makes it even better.

Michael Symon’s Couscous and Tuna Salad - A recipe re-do from September 28, 2011's The Chew, Ozzified

 Michael Symon’s original recipe from the September 28th episode can be found here:

This was a recipe where I ended up changing six of the nine ingredients just to make it more like something Dr. Oz might eat. 

The three things kept from Symon's recipe:

• ·         Parsley
• ·         Olive oil
• ·         Vinegar

I modified three other ingredients:

• ·         Garbanzo beans/chick peas - I used a reduced sodium brand
• ·         Lemon - because it involved using the zest, I used an organic lemon
• ·         Couscous - I used a whole wheat couscous

and swapped out the final three ingredients:

• ·         86ed the golden raisins for nutrient-dense dried cranberries
• ·         Scrapped the high mercury tuna for a more Omega 3 rich canned wild-caught Alaska Salmon. Even if salmon weren't a healthier alternative, I don't know about where you live, but in my neck of the woods, not one store had ever heard of tuna coming in a jar.
• ·         Dumped pickled vegetables and used some tri-color peppers from a jar - much less sodium and colored peppers are rich in vitamins and carotinoids

Poor Daphne has been taking a lot of undeserved pot-shots from her fellow panelists. Here are a couple of examples: 

• On Sept. 27th show, Michael Symon derided  Oz as "Fat phobic" when she asked if the chicken could be made without the skins.  btw: As I wrote in my previous blog entry, I made the same dish w/o the skin and it was very flavorful. Besides, one look @ my ample behind should be proof enough that I'm not fat-phobic) 
• On this episode, Carla was suggesting that the dish could also be made with rice or farro, which prompted Mario Batali to pointedly inquire, "Can you use psyllium husks?" 

To answer your question, Mario, however snide it might be, the answer is YES! Just to prove a point, I shook in a tablespoon or two of psyllium husks - & not one person who ate it could tell they were in there. Booyah!!! Score one for Daphne Oz.